facility

Noun

facility (countable and uncountable, plural facilities)

1. The physical means or contrivances to make something (especially a public service) possible; the required equipment, infrastructure, location etc.
   • Transport facilities in Bangkok are not sufficient to prevent frequent traffic collapses during rush hour.
   • A wide range of facilities is available at the sports center, including a weight room and saunas.
2. A building or campus specially designed for a specific purpose, such as incarceration, military use, or scientific experimentation.
3. The fact of being easy, or easily done; absence of difficulty; simplicity.
   • Clytomachus affirmed, that he could never understand by the writings of Carneades, what opinion he was of. Why hath Epicurus interdicted facility unto his Sectaries?1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
   • Since I had started to break down all my writing and get rid of all facility and try to make instead of describe, writing had been wonderful to do. But it was very difficult, and I did not know how I would ever write anything as long as a novel. It often took me a full morning of work to write a...1964, Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 151
4. Dexterity of speech or action; skill, talent.
   • The facility she shows in playing the violin is unrivalled.

   Synonyms:

   ease, knack, ability, technique, aptitude, capacity, craft, capability, competency, competence

5. (Canada, US, in plural) A toilet.
6. (Scots law) A condition of mental weakness less than idiocy, but enough to make a person easily persuaded to do something against their better interest.
7. (dated) Affability.